


In Memoriam

by Graideds (orphan_account)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - War, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Grieving, Like so much, M/M, Slow Burn, So much fkn angst, THEY'RE A THING, avengers flashback tidbit things, im an awful person part 985, the beginning is kind of awful sorry, very sad, very slow burn, very very sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-13 01:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5690164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Graideds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint & Natasha are assigned to infiltrate Sokovian ranks and to not get too involved. On a mission for the Sokovian army, Clint gets badly hurt, and Pietro stays with him through recovery and on.</p><p>In the end, Clint, per usual, fails at not getting too involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Just like any other time, huh?” Clint says, and Nat nods. “Supposedly,” she signs to him, and he sighs and starts undoing his straps. “I sure as hell hope it is,” Clint signs before he grabs his duffel and makes sure the packages on his legs are secure. Beside him, he can see Nat beginning to do the same.

Someone leans back from the cockpit. “Jumping in three,” they say. “Romanoff, you’re easily excitable Terrin Fayn. Absent father figure, no recorded mother,” she explains, and hands her a file. “Barton, you’re yourself. Just don’t be too obvious,” she quips, and raises an eyebrow at the end of it, daring him to challenge her. He raises his hands. “No problem here,” he says.

She smiles a bit—maybe she chuckles, Clint can’t really tell. 

“That’s our cue,” Natasha says, and he nods. She’s approaching the door of the helicopter and checking her equipment one final last time, and then she opens the door and pushes the rope they’d use to slither down to the city below out of the door. The thick cord jerks against the metal loop it’s tied to when extended fully. 

“You got the bird steady?” Nat shouts, over the noise of the helicopter. The pilot says something back eventually because Nat nods and grabs her backpack and then grabs ahold of the rope and loops it over her glove and around her leg and then turns towards Clint so she can properly jump off. 

She does, and Clint feels the familiar pang of anxiety at it, but brushes it aside and waits with a hand on the cord until it’s tugged three times to do it himself.

—————

Orders are being shouted all around them, and Nat is over flirting with a bunch of guys, trying to get them on her side. She’s doing unnervingly well, he can tell by how every single one practically has their face buried in her boobs, and Clint immediately diverts his gaze over to another group.

A girl, a boy, a boy, a boy, a boy. They were so young. It made Clint shiver ever so slightly, and suddenly, one of the boys—a white haired one—leaps across at another one, dark haired and wiry. Clint watches for a fraction of a second, enjoying the show—white hair was buff, okay, and shirtless—before he goes over to intervene. “Break it up, you two,” he says, sternly. The girl—brown hair, red eyes, vampire style—starts muttering something in Sokovian. Clint can’t tell what it is, because he’s not learned to read Sokovian well yet. He’s just hopeful that they teach their soldiers sign language.

It’s not needed, though, because white-hair is still beating the other guy to a pulp on the ground. Clint tries to pry him off, but resorts to shoving him over with a foot—almost a kick, but not quite. White hair is up and locking eyes with him before he knows what’s happening and then is on him, throwing punches. Clint’s blocking his moves before he’s even fully assessed what’s happening, blocking one punch and grabbing his upper arm and then slamming him into the ground in turn, one knee on his back and using his opponent’s body to keep his torso upright. 

“Stand down, boy,” Clint growls, and white-hair says something, then starts struggling again. Clint pushes his arm harder into his back. 

“Stop,” he persists, and he seems to consider for a moment before going still again. He lets him up, and he immediately jumps to his feet, muttering something. Clint doesn’t really feel like telling him anything along the lines of “clean up your act,” so he just nods and flicks the mud off of his uniform from their tangle. 

“You kids—uh—don’t kill yourselves,” he says, in probably awful Sokovian, and the instigator chuckles bitterly. He’s got his hands on his hips, and the girl with red rimmed eyes is going over to hide behind one of his arms. She’s a little creepy, Clint admits, but he can’t bring himself to think of her as weird yet. Yet.

—————

“You’re going to be in Sokovia for a very long time, guys. At least a few years. Sure, you'll be part of an elite team, but... Are you sure you want to do this?” Fury asked. Clint could see Natasha barely refraining from rolling her eyes beside him, and Clint nodded. When had they ever backed out of a mission?

Fury nodded and turned to whisper something to Agent Hill. Clint leaned in to Nat conspiratorially. “What do you think Sokovians are like?” He asks. She shrugs.

“Probably the same as everyone else,” she signed, underneath the table. Clint snorted.

—————

Turns out, the white-haired kid is named Pietro, and the other half of him is Wanda. They were siblings and Clint wasn’t entirely sure that was all, but he didn’t really press it. They were fantastic on the field with each other, and their stats were through the roof. Also, he was their American-looking, deaf lieutenant, and he wasn’t gonna weasel his way into their private lives. He was just going to make their lives hell, as was expected of every squad leader. 

He drilled them for the two months that they were required to be there, and on the side worked himself into the favor of almost everyone except for a few of the very high ranking officers - Doom, Ultron, Zeemo, and Nefaria seemed to despise both him and Natasha for whatever reason. Maybe it was because they were American. Clint didn’t care and didn’t try to win their favor because he had better sources. 

Then, suddenly, a covert war was happening. Clint and Natasha were almost extracted, but they were close enough to the top of Sokovia’s highest military powers that no one followed through on those threats. Plus, Clint was beginning to like Sokovia. Nat wasn’t, though. She said that the language was hard to pronounce and she hated who she had to play. Clint just grunted in response more than half the time. She only ever talked to him at, like, three in the morning.

So they were, inevitably, called into the field. Natasha was letting her cover’s personality slip, and Clint was beginning to bond with his squad with the training drills Natasha put them through. They all ignored that they could be attacked at any moment in their camp, or that they could be called for a mission. That they would be, eventually. They weren’t transferred to another location for no reason. 

—————

Running. Gasping. Escape, escape, escape, escape - Natasha. Sweat stuck to his brow, trees grabbed at his clothes, scratched at his skin. Roots wrapped themselves around his shoes and he wasn’t supposed to get out of this forest alive.

He woke up to dark grey walls around him and an uncomfortable, minimalist cot below him. He was at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Budapest was years and miles away. He sat up and groaned with the effort. His back and stomach felt like fire was lacing through them, and the backs of his knees were not cooperating after being still for so long. He put them on the edge of the bed.

He ended up getting dressed and roaming headquarters like the night before.

-

He woke up on the same nightmare as the night before. This time, Natasha was waiting outside his door.

“You’ve been waking up every night at the same time for the past few weeks,” she whispers. “I was getting worried,” she adds, and touches his arm. Her face is so kind. She has a smile and her eyebrows are pushed up in the middle. 

“It’s just nightmares,” he concedes, and shakes his head. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he signs. Nat nods and joins him on his silent walk.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first mission is assigned, and Clint remembers how much of a dedication he made to his role in Sokovia when he signed up to do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hawksilver isn't going to be really big in this story until the middle and then on. This is the transition, I promise, but it's going to be established through angst and suffering and god this fic is gonna be awful

Night slinks slowly down on their post, and so do moods. Everyone’s a little crabby from their nerves, since they were about to go into a very, very dangerous situation with heavily armored vehicles with heavily armed men inside of them at every turn. It was a very covert operation, with only six people going to get the informant they were assigned to capture or kill. Clint’s comfortable in the situation, and so is Natasha, and he can tell that the others are a little unnerved by their unbothered disposition as they all prepare themselves to go out of the forest that they’d been stationed in and into the city, where the target’s safehouse was. They were obviously bothered. The tent they were in hummed with their anxiety.

"Alright, kids, gather 'round," Clint says, holding out his arms. Pietro, of course, finds a way to weasel his way beside Clint. The action has Clint thinking about one of the notes the punk had left in his clothes that morning. He very violently rips his thoughts away from that, though, and glances around the circle everyone had formed. Samuel, Wanda, Natasha, Greta, Todd, Gavin, Pietro, and him. It's a small team. He knows each of them could take on four others, if they had to. He looks down at the map in front of them and explains the game plan again.

—————

"Nat, why do you have so many tampons for this trip?" Clint asked. Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, a small smile tugging at her lips. 

"I heard that Sokovian stores are awful about tampons," she responds. Clint frowns in disgust that he'd even asked and tosses the box to the side, just in time for Tony to open the door with a brownie in the hand he hadn't used for the door.

"Ah, just who I was hoping to see!" He shouts, completely ignoring Clint. "Cap made brownies. I made them pot brownies," he grins. Clint's jaw drops, despite the smile that was forming. Nat just laughs. 

"So, is everyone just high?" Clint asks. Tony grins.

"You should see Thor, man. He's weirder than usual. Almost broke the countertops," Tony says, and starts laughing. He's laughing for a very long time, doubled over eventually. "Man, I'm pretty sure he's in love with Loki or something. I mean, that's definitely not just platonic," Tony mutters, looking absurdly thoughtful.

Nat looks over at him, a grin plastered on her face that only says _we have to take full advantage of them right now._

The morning before Clint and Natasha have to leave, they have a lot of pictures that they're sharing with everyone. Each one that's presented comes with a new death threat.

"I think I might release these to the press, Bruce," Clint says, grinning as he peruses through a few that were on Nat's phone. His death glare is so intense that Clint doesn't need to hear what he says next.

"Y'know, it's bullshit that we're not allowed to let anything out about the fact that you guys exist," Steve mutters. His face has been so red for the past few minutes that Clint is sure he's having circulation problems everywhere else. Natasha smiles cheekily. 

"Perks of being kickass spies that have more responsibilities than you," Clint says for her, at the same time that Tony says "language, cap."

—————

 _Go,_ Clint signs, and they all pass through the gate, their feet moving in sync. Clint takes cover on the edge of the nearest building, and waits as the others file behind him. He peeks around the corner and advances when he finds that the road is empty, telling the group to go again. Natasha splits off from Clint's team, taking Pietro, Gavin, and Sam. He glances back at the people he has left - Todd, who could do anything related to technology, Greta, who could be the quietest person Clint knew (and he knew a few mutes), Wanda, who was unnervingly good at manipulation, and Clint. He did stuff with arrows.

He turns back around to face the road, and sees a car coming. _Car comes,_ he signs, and then feels around his quiver for an arrow. A hand offers one up to him. He feels around the top, confirming it's the right kind, before he looks back and sees Wanda lowering her arm. 

He swallows and turns around, readying the arrow to fire, before he slips his torso around the corner and fires the arrow at one of the tires. It slips through the entire tire and nestles into the actual rubber, so that all that's visible is a small hole that's rapidly releasing air. He does the same for the back tire, but this arrow sticks out. A few of the people around the truck start gathering closer to it, clearly distracted. They're not stupid, though, and are soon enough looking back the way that the arrow fired. Clint turns around and motions for everyone to do the same and for whoever's in front to move, quickly, to another cover. It's not long afterwards that they're slinking around the city.

Something suddenly happens that shakes Clint's feet when they're near their final location. Everyone starts looking around wide-eyed, and then at Clint. Wanda notices his confusion and explains. _There was an explosion. Yelling. Natasha is comm-ing for help,_ she signs, and Clint feels his heart drop. 

—————

Steve was the one who always woke everyone up. He'd have food in his hands or a gift or some kind of nice thing to soften the blow of _wake up bitch, you gotta face reality now._

Tony was more than likely already awake. Hell, he was the reason some people woke up, especially if their room was near the kitchen. Their coffee maker was ridiculously loud, even if it looked like it came from the space age. Steve always yelled at him when he found him awake - "I set up an alarm for you to go to _sleep_ , Stark, dammit!"

Sam was not a morning person.

He always woke up with mascara smudges even though he didn't wear makeup. He was never really fully dressed. Anyone who woke him up had to be prepared for intense psychological damage from his angry rant at being woken up, or just a beatdown if you tried to defend yourself. 

Natasha was worse. She had knives under her pillows, and in them, and everyone wondered how she hadn't died yet from the small arsenal that was always just floating freely between her sheets. The worst injury Clint had ever seen on her was a cut on her finger, from when she had been threatening someone who tried to wake her up. She was always dandy when she was waking up before a mission, though.

Clint was usually already awake from his nightmares, and just pretended to be asleep around seven, which was when everyone typically woke up. To kill time before then, he usually read something on his fancy schmancy Stark tablet or wandered around the tower. He probably knew the place better than anyone because of his nightly escapades.

—————

 _Take us there quickly,_ he signs back, and Wanda nods. 

The entire time they're running to the site, Clint can't think very clearly. He's almost entirely trusting his unit at this point, instead entertaining himself with thoughts of _what if she's dead what if she's hurt you planned for everyone to split up she can handle herself she can't protect herself against explosives._

When they get there, Clint sees Natasha fighting five people on her own, and everyone else is down on the ground, including friendly troops. She's got blood leaking from her upper thigh. Thank god, because that was one of the best places to get cut. It's obviously weighing on her skills, though, because she's weaponless and her natural fighting style relied heavily on her legs.

Clint takes a knife and dives into the fight. None of the people fighting her noticed him at first, because he was approaching behind them, but after he buried his knife in someone's brain stem and ripped it out and sent a warm gush of blood everywhere he was noticed. Two of the four people left turned to him, but then the rest of Clint's team joined. The goons were taken care of quickly.

Wanda is gone quickly, and Clint is at Natasha's side just as soon as she's left for her twin. "Can you walk?" He signs, and she nods. 

"Doesn't... hurt that bad," she gasps. Clint takes her word for it, and pats his foot on the ground to get everyone's attention. He points to a dark alley, because he can feel the vibrations of trucks in the ground. They all go into the alley.

Once there, Natasha immediately tells him to give her and everyone else in her group a gun and a knife. That's simple enough; they were heavily armed. She tells him to leave, to make their way along the rooftops and keep low, and he nods and tells the rest of them the plan. Weapons are transferred and then they're climbing up the edge of the buildings around them. Thankfully, there are high sides on the roof, and all they have to do is crouch to stay out of sight.

—————

The Avengers's kitchen was nothing short of a passive-aggressive war zone. Everyone hid their food. Everyone searched for hidden food, because everything that wasn't hidden was along the lines of popcorn and white bread and Cheez-itz and protein bars. If someone stole hidden food, there was a covert investigation that was put underway by whomever's food it had been, and then whoever they thought had stolen it would have their room's floor covered in hundreds of water-filled plastic cups or something of the sort. It was always a meticulous prank, unless it was Steve who did it, because he usually just went ham with sillystring or did a "SMACK CAM!" type of prank.

—————

The building that their target is in is heavily guarded. 

Of course, they go in as conspicuously as possible. Clint tells Wanda and Todd and Greta to protect him as he made his way to where the informant was. People are trying to load them into another car, but the only cars are in the front of the building, and Clint doesn't feel the rumble of a car approaching as he slips from the formation his team had made and grabs an arrow from his quiver and loads it into his bow.

Time seems to slow as he pulls the arrow back. He remembers the rest of his squad in the alleyway. He wonders if they're okay. His breath goes in and out, in and out, softly out of his mouth. It's cold enough that fog forms.

His mind remembers the sound of an arrow slapping out of his bow well enough that he swears he hears it as he lets go and watches it embed itself in the back of the informant's skull. The woman's head snaps to the side, and her knees give out not soon after.

The moment is back again. Clint has to go. He has to get Natasha and Gavin and Pietro and everyone else to safety. He turns and runs back to the team, who are firing against the others that have backed up against the building. Too late he realizes his mistake of coming out of hiding, because he feels a bullet rip through his thigh. He bucks and falls at the pain. Another bullet hits his arm, the brutes in hiding obviously opting for the easier target. The bullet that hit his arm stays in there, he knows that much, because when he moves to get himself back up, he can feel his muscles constricting around it, feel where muscle should be and his nerves dancing with fire. Another slices through his side. Panic falls over him, because that wasn't a good place to get hit. He feels tears in his eyes, streaming down his face. He'll never be used to the pain of a gunshot wound.

Adrenaline starts kicking in, though, and every other type of feel-good brain chemical that Clint had been told about but never remembered starts pumping into his system. He feels good enough to making his way to the rest of his team. They start moving out. Someone tells him to stop and puts him over their shoulders. They're going to get the others, someone tells him, and he nods half-heartedly. He's still riding out his adrenaline high.

He doesn't process everyone else adding onto their team. They're moving really slowly with everyone in such poor shape, and the chances of them not getting out of this alive are getting higher. Every other turn has an armed team that knows what they're looking for. 

They escape, but narrowly. They have to wait for two hours, being completely still, in the woods. Lights are all around them and Clint feels like he's going to pass out from blood loss like Natasha has already done. At least he won't be able to make a lot of noise then. Ha. Noise.

—————

Natasha was beautiful. She was so beautiful that she couldn't be real, and she wasn't wearing any makeup or even half decent clothing.

She was looking in the refrigerator with sweatpants and a wife-beater on and her curly, frizzy hair was matted up. When she turned around, her frame was outlined by white light. She was like an angel. 

She could kick his ass in a matter of seconds. She was probably about to, for him staring at her.

—————

When he wakes up, there's a blue kind of light that immediately attacks his eyes. He blinks against them and pulls his arm up to block it out, but his arm's progress is stopped by something on his finger and something that wiggles in his wrist. He immediately recognizes the sensation of an IV needle and puts his arm back, but he brings up his other arm to ease his eyes into the florescent light that was undoubtedly around him. 

People are gathered around his bed. They look stressed. _Pain._ Lightning immediately cracks along his body, immediately springing tears to his eyes. He shouts in agony. His arm feels like it's being twisted off and his thigh like it's being drilled into. His head is pounding and he's so tired, so tired, that he can't even _move_ but it's all he wants to do, all he wants to do is run away and leave his body behind, all this pain that's lashing through him. A new wound on his back hits him with such intensity that he feels tingles all across his body and goosebumps sound all over him. Another dagger pierces him on his back. He's sobbing and screaming but is completely immobile, the sedatives that he was given earlier giving him control of nothing. A panic that he's been completely handicapped comes over him and he desperately tries to move. 

People are shouting at him. Probably things like "calm down!" or "you're okay!" or some other bullshit. Clint's not okay. He can't control himself and he's trapped in pain.

Suddenly, though, a needle is stuck in him, and the pain is gone. He's still crying, though, when the rest of the sedatives wear off, when the nurses around him start fretting over him. They don't ask why he's still crying. He's glad, because he doesn't know. 

—

Later, the rest of the team visits him in his room. He's still crying. He can't stop. No one asks him why. He's glad, because he doesn't know.

"Hey," Greta signs. Clint says it back. Natasha's leaning against a crutch and Pietro is in a wheelchair, but his toes flex every few seconds, so Clint knows he's okay. Wanda seems fine, save for a black eye and a scratch that has two of those little white things that doctors substituted for stitches. Todd's arm is in a cast and his knee is in a brace. Everyone has some kind of wound. Clint's obviously the worst off, since he's still bed ridden. Everyone looks considerably worried. Clint feels anger swell in his chest.

"How are you guys?" He asks, sure to make his tone oppositional. Natasha raises an eyebrow and Pietro stiffens and Clint immediately feels bad for it. He clears his throat. "I uh... sorry," he says, a bit quieter. No one replies. "What's word from base?" He asks, trying to slice through the heavy tension in the air.

"We're out of commission until everyone gets better," Wanda says. Clint slumps against his pillow and closes his eyes. Everyone but Natasha takes it as a sign to leave.

He jumps when she touches his arm. "I'm being called back to the Avengers," she mouths in English, staying completely silent. Clint's unending stream of tears increases, but it's only noticeable to him. "Okay," he whispers back. She looks incredibly concerned, but instead of saying anything, she just holds his hand for a second and then leaves. 

Clint goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides for my life*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is short i know and i'm sorry but the story is going to be divided into single days for clint, unless i need to skip a chunk of time. these next few chapters are gonna be short too, because he's tired and healing

When Clint wakes up again, he's in a hospital room. There's no harsh lighting to accustom himself to, but there is a nurse at his bedside. He marvels at him when he notices he's awake.

"You've... been... asleep. For five days," he says, "we thought you were in a coma." Clint supposes that's a good enough reason for him to go to the doorway and yell something at someone. He looks at the TV instead of at what he's doing, but soon enough the nurse is back at his bedside, asking him questions about his pain levels. At that, he looks down. His arm is in a cast. So is his leg. He sighs and flops his head back against the pillow.

"No pain," he says, and the nurse nods. Clint ignores the rest of what happens afterwards, since a doctor comes in, and looks at some of what's on his body. There are those little things they put on you that monitor your heartbeat, and the finger thing is there, too. Clint doesn't know their names. There's a bag of something that Clint suspects is some kind of strong painkiller above his IV bag. The needle's cord is attached to the IV bag. 

The doctor gets his attention by waving his hand in front of his face. Clint drags his head through hardening foam to look at him. _Deaf?_ the doctor asks, his index finger moving from his ear to his mouth. The only thing that makes it a question is his eyebrows raising. Clint nods, and the doctor asks if he can read lips. 

"In twelve different languages," Clint responds. "I became deaf, I wasn't born this way," he says. Before the doctor can say anything else, "Actually, y'know, shouldn't this be in some file somewhere?" He didn't like talking about it. The doctor glances away. Apparently this was a really shit hospital, then. Did they not even check files? 

Thanks, S.H.I.E.L.D.

—————

The last time Tony had gotten a cold, he just rode it out in the basement. 

This time, he was convinced had the bubonic plague (despite how he knows the actual symptoms of that and has even admitted to Bruce that "yeah, okay, maybe I don't have the sacs, but it could still be a thing"), and he was draped dramatically over the couch, spewing things about how it was the last of his days and hoping that the world would remember him as he truly was: devilishly handsome and incredibly rich. Clint was about to shoot him. 

"Man of Iron. I see you have fallen ill," comes a booming voice over the couch cushions. Clint takes his head from its position in his hands and looks up hopefully. 

"Is it your shift now?" Clint asks hopefully. Tony sends him a baleful glare, but Clint's past hate for Tony, so he can deal with his irritation. 

—————

Clint sat in his bed. He couldn't move while he was in the bed and he had to call the nurse so that he could take a shit or so that he could pee. So when the Maximoff twins came in, Clint was almost like an attention-seeking puppy. 

"What are you two punks doing here?" he asks, a smile curling his mouth. They both smile and do the same odd head twitch thing they both do when they're embarrassed. Clint feels fondness curl in his gut at the thought.

"Well, the team's out of commission, and you're the reason," Pietro quips. Clint grins, though tired and somewhat forced as it is.

"Is that lip you're giving me, soldier?" He asks, and a round of chuckles goes around the room, accompanied by flashbacks of how grueling their training exercises had been.

Wanda goes over and sets down a vase of flowers on his nightstand. When the flowers hit the wood, a sense of awkwardness fills the room, and Clint is immediately searching for something to say at, apparently, the same time as Pietro.

"How's the rest of the team?" collides with "How've you been, Barton?" at the same time. They both scramble for answers and "you go first"s. Wanda starts laughing, though, and soon they've all joined in.

"Oh god, oh god, everything hurts," Clint gasps, when pain covers his arm and spreads through his leg and blinds him for a second. Both of the twin's smiles drop quickly. Clint would laugh at that, but the pain isn't going away, it wasn't just a bright flare for a few seconds. He closes his eyes and can feel his neck veins bulging. 

"Nurse!" Wanda shouts, while Pietro stands stock still. 

—

The visit didn't last for very long after that. Clint _really_ needed a nap and the nurse was ushering them out, so they left with Pietro signing "get well soon!" or something of the sort.

Clint sleeps through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can we just talk about how awkward this was and how much i cringed while writing this. like i could feel the awkwardness and it's not even a real thing


	4. Chapter 4

Clint wakes up to someone changing the bandages on his arm. He can tell it's been numbed, even through his high and sleep-addled brain. It's weird, though, because he can feel the person's fingers against his skin. He looks up at their face. It's a new nurse. They have a goatee and are, oddly, somewhat buff. He blinks his gaze away from them, settling his gaze on the TV that was in the middle of the drably white wall opposite him. 

The nurse grins at him and jostles him, and Clint furrows his brow and jerks his head over to look at them. "Clint, you motherfucker, how are ya?" They say, and Clint suddenly registers that _this is Tony._ He furrows his brow even further. How in hell did he know where he was? Probably got bored, honestly, and got ahold of some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files.

"You could get me caught, y'know. You're sort of famous," Clint mutters, as Tony wraps gauze around his arm. He's a pretty good nurse, in all honesty. Tony grins. 

"Nah, I have one of these," he says, and reaches up to his neck to pull up a surgical mask. Clint raises an eyebrow.

"That's a shit disguise."

"And yet I haven't gotten recognized yet."

It's a moment before Clint talks again. "Why did you decide that you would change my bandage while you were in here? Is this standard procedure?"

"Someone told me to do it," Tony replies, "don't want to give up my cover, after all."

Clint lets the topic go, feeling himself slipping back into sleep.

-

He's shaken back awake by... Tony. He groans loudly in protest. "Quiet, princess. I'm just saying goodbye," he explains. Clint nods weakly and Tony walks out of the room.

—————

Bruce once tried to get everyone to join him in his meditation. 

At first, everything had gone fine; they all had their legs positioned and Bruce was already sinking deep into his trance. Then Clint sneezed, and Tony laughed at him. The two distractions pulled Natasha out of the beginnings of her relaxation, and then she shushed the two of them. Clint just laughed at her, and Tony joined him, the silence that weighed over the group making them both immature and giggly. Natasha eventually gave up and they all left as quietly as they could.

Thor was only one left in the room with Bruce for a while. The next few months consisted of Bruce and Thor trading tips and techniques and getting fancy smoothies together. Thor even wore tights. 

—————

He's awoken again with panic by a sharp knock on his bed. He looks over quickly and sees Pietro, groggy and getting off of the floor, in front of one of the only chairs in the room. Todd is settling back into sleep, obviously awoken by his falling off of the chair.

"How long have you two been here?" Clint asks. Pietro turns around, somewhat alarmed to see Clint awake. A grin breaks his obviously tired demeanor and he pulls himself up fully before he goes to Clint's bedside. 

"Ah, I see you are awake now," he says, and Clint waves the comment off and repeats himself. Pietro sheepishly replies _two days_ and Clint raises his eyebrows. 

"Todd, too?"

"Just this night. Wanda was here... earlier," he says. Clint notices something shading his cheeks, but he doesn't dwell on it for too long. 

"Well, make yourself at home, then," Clint motions around the room. "Got a couch, got a chair. Pain meds, if that's what you're into," he grins, "I don't judge." Pietro just laughs. 

They spend the rest of the night watching movies on the television, until Clint falls asleep (which is only twenty minutes later). Pietro goes over and pulls the blanket up further, careful not to brush anything that could be sensitive.

—————

"Yeah, did you know that once he said that he didn't know the difference between lizards and snakes? Ridiculous," Tony chides Coulson. Coulson smiles at the girl he's trying to woo and sends a covert glare at him. Clint grins.

"Oh, yeah, I remember that. Didn't he also say that he didn't understand the fascination with makeup once?" Clint adds, and Tony's grin is as intensely shiteating as Clint's is.

"Oh, yes. He said that girls who wear any more than foundation, eyeshadow and mascara probably have daddy problems," Tony adds. It's a blatant lie, but the girl does walk away. He and Clint highfive. 

"You can't do this all night," Coulson says. 

"I don't think any girls will want to be around you after at least five," Clint retorts. "Girls have this weird psychic thing with each other, man. If they think one of the guys is creepy, they're marked for the night," he punches him lightly on the arm. "But hey, knock yourself out."

They managed to get three others to think he was bi by either of them pretending to be his neglected lover, and all of those cases ended in them telling Coulson off for being an asshole. Both of them milked the hell out of the situation. Two more they made think that he was still living with his mother, and yet two more left believing that he was a misogynistic asshole. 

"All in a night's work, huh, Barton?"

"Hell yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for not updating for a week, I just didn't really know how to continue and had a few things written out but not very well and they didn't really make sense. but yay! i did it!


End file.
